Chronicles of a Half-Elf
by KingZthe1st
Summary: Ashlyn was a member of the Selune's Ryu crew, a pirate ship from the Dragon Coast. A dracolich attack finds her washed up on a beach with the unlikely Duncan. She is now indebted to and forced to work with one of her most unapproachable crew mates. This story follows Ashlyn on her adventures through Neverwinter.
1. Prologue - The Battle of the Dragons

Ashlyn regained consciousness very slowly. The first thing she noticed was the burning sensation of salt in the space between her mouth and nose, telling her that she had swallowed a lot of ocean water. The next thing she noticed was that she was aching all over. This was mostly likely a result of being dragged onto the beach by a strong current of water. A groan escaped Ashlyn. She opened her hazel eyes to see a clear blue sky above her. The disgusting smell of rotting flesh filled her nose. After a second, Ashlyn struggled to her feet. Waves of dizziness washed over her. She hunched over a bit with her hand on her head, trying to wait for the world to stop spinning. It only took a few moments for it to pass. She then took in her surroundings.

She was on a beach. The smoke from _Selune's Ryu_ was still visible over the water. There was a forest to Ashlyn's left, and a man a few yards in front of her gazing out at the wreckage. She turned in a slow circle, searching for any signs of the rest of the crew. As she did this, she absently combed her fingers through her long red hair. Her hair was a thick, tangled mess and so full of salt and sand that it was scratching the small of her back where the current had torn her shirt. There was no one except that man around. Was she the only one that had survived the dracolich attack? The memory of Duncan pulling her over the side of the ship and into the water flashed through her mind. He had saved her.

A hand fell on her shoulder then. She spun around swiftly with her fist pulled back. She found herself looking into blue eyes for the second time today.

"Woah. Watch it." Duncan said, pushing her fist down to her side. "You might hurt yourself."

Ashlyn exhaled, half in relief and half in annoyance. Of course the first thing that he would say after they had survived something so terrible would be insultinig. He was so inconsiderate. And he, the inconsiderate and rude Lonewolf, of all people, had saved her.

Ashlyn gave him an odd look. She supposed that she should thank him. She wanted to know if he had seen any of the rest of the crew while he was sneaking up behind her. Instead of saying anything important or that mattered at all, she blurted, "Why did you save me?" Duncan's eyebrows shot up, then he narrowed his eyes at her and crossed his arms.

"You're welcome." It was clear to Ashlyn that Duncan thought her ungrateful, and Ashlyn was definitely not that. So, sighing heavily, she mumbled, "Thanks." After an awkward pause of staring into his smug face while waiting for a kinder 'you're welcome' that didn't come, Ashlyn glared at him. "Well? Where's the rest of the crew?" she asked, not bothering to be so kind. This question seemed to deflate Duncan. He frowned, and Ashlyn already knew the answer before he shook his head. So he didn't know. He was pretty sure they didn't make it. Ashlyn tried not to connect the rotting smell with the loss of their crewmates.

A moment of mournful silence passed before Duncan huffed, "At least we made it to land and both of us are alive. That's more than I had dared hope. Let's ask that guy where we are." With that, he headed toward the man that Ashlyn had seen earlier. The man was now watching them warily. Ashlyn began to realize that even though Duncan was being rude and smug about the whole thing, he had saved her life. And that put her in his debt. Not only that, but he hadn't simply abandoned her afterward. He had looked for her after the wreck and, in hindsight, had actually looked relieved when he found her alive. Sighing, she followed him.

"Hello," Duncan was saying, "I'm Wolf. I'm from the crew of the _Selune's Ryu_." The man's eyes flicked to Ashlyn.

"Oh. I'm Pink. Also a crew member. Um. You haven't seen anyone else around here, have you?" Ashlyn asked, her heart still clinging to hope.

"No, ma'am. But thank the gods that you two are alive. I was so afraid no one would survive as I watched the dracolich attack the ship." He paused, then continued to both of them, "I'm Private Wilfred. What would make you two sail to Neverwinter during times such as these?" So they were near Neverwinter. That was across the continent of Faerun from where Ashlyn was born.

Duncan and Ashlyn exchanged a look. Ashlyn was the first to answer. "Well… we're from Faerun, but a different part. We have been at sea for quite a while."

The look of defiance on Duncan's face said it all. Ashlyn knew that he was about to be rude again, but he spoke before she could stop him, "But I don't see how that's your business," Gods, this guy was so off-putting, Ashlyn could hardly stand it.

Private Wilfred hesitated and said, "Well welcome home… I suppose. I can guarantee you adventure if you stay to help. You may even find riches. You may have noticed that Neverwinter is under attack by a necromancer. Her name is Valindra. She conjured that has been assaulting the city with her legions of undead."

That must also be where that awful smell was coming from. That gave Ashlyn the tiniest feeling of relief. There was still a glimmer of hope that the crew hadn't all died. Who's to say how long Wilfred had been standing here? He may have missed them. An army of undead was bound to spread that terrible smell. Ashlyn wavered for a second. WIlfred said that Neverwinter needed help fighting the undead, but she was terrified of the zombies. Her nightmares were full of them. She chewed on her lip for a second before resolving herself to the greater good and the promise of adventure. She said to the Private, "We would be happy to help you in any way that we can." Duncan nodded in agreement, almost as if he had been waiting for her answer.

Grateful, Private Wilfred gestured behind him and suggested that they search the wreckage for whatever was left of their gear. Ashlyn's eyes followed the direction in which he had motioned and recognized the weathered boxes that had washed up on the shore from their ship. "You shouldn't be wandering around unarmed. It's dangerous." Private Wilfred explained, and then he said, "When you finish, head up to the camp at the top of the hill. They've got a nice warm fire up there. You'll feel better once you've dried off."

Ashlyn and Duncan made their way toward the washed up wreckage after thanking Private Wilfred for his help. "This is crazy, Wolf," Ashlyn mumbled as they opened the boxes on the shore. "We just fought a dragon. Our ship is sunk, and we have no more crew. What are we going to do?" She asked as she pulled robes out of one of the boxes, her voice trembling a bit.

Duncan sighed and answered in a low voice, "We'll be ok. Stop panicking." He paused for a second, contemplating his next words. "You could always just stay at the camp. Wouldn't want you hurting yourself. I can come to get you when I've figured something out." He offered her an orb and until then, she hadn't even noticed that her previous Orb was gone. Now she remembered that it had been crushed into dust before they had even jumped into the water. This one was cracked, but it would have to do. At her touch, the orb floated up by her head, level with her slightly pointed ears. She opened her mouth to protest Duncan's implication that she couldn't handle herself, but before she could say anything, he grabbed a tarp and held it up. "Go ahead and put your dry robes on." Ashlyn must have looked surprised because he smirked. "Come on, Pink. You will be warmer." Duncan had already equipped his extra pair of daggers to his belt, and while she hadn't been looking had pulled on his new robes.

Ashlyn narrowed her eyes in distrust. "Wolf," she threatened, "if you peek, a dracolich and a sunken ship will be the least of your problems." He rolled his eyes at this, making it quite obvious that he didn't feel threatened by her at all. Duncan must have known that she was serious, though, because he made a show of closing his eyes and pulling the tarp up far enough so that it was above his head, but still blocked her from the view of anyone else. Once she was done, they headed up the hill toward the camp.

As they entered the camp, soldiers turned to look at them, assessing them. This made Ashlyn nervous because Duncan was very intimidating. He had dark skin and dread locks that hung down on both sides of his face. He always carried himself with an air of 'I'm-better-than-you' while his hands always seemed to be ready to unsheathe his daggers at a moment's notice. Either Ashlyn's small frame and unintimidating stance cancelled out Duncan's daunting look, or the pair of them must be in worse shape than she thought. The soldiers didn't do or say anything. They simply returned to whatever they had been doing as if there hadn't been an interruption.

Ashlyn pointed to the campfire. She and Duncan went to stand by it. The warmth of it washed over Ashlyn as soon as they got close, and she could practically feel the rosiness returning to her pale skin. Her hair was almost dry, and it was beginning to feel much softer than she had expected, though she still needed a comb for the tangled mess that the sea had turned it into. She turned to look at Duncan, who was in the process of squeezing excess water out of his dreadlocks. As soon as they were both warm and relatively dry, they approached the man who seemed to be in charge.

"Excuse me, sir," Ashlyn said as they approached him, "I'm Pink and this is Wolf."

"Hello. I'm glad to see that someone survived that ship wreck! I'm Lieutenant Linkletter," He said as an introduction.

"You saw that from here?" Duncan asked, and when the Lieutenant responded with a nod, Duncan added, "Has anyone else come through here?" This earned a glance from Ashlyn. This was the first time he had even expressed interest in finding the rest of the crew. So he did care.

"Sorry, no. You lost some of your crew, did you?" Linkletter guessed. This lieutenant appeared to be a pretty perceptive guy. Within seconds he had been able to tell that they were from the ship wreck and that the people Duncan had asked about were their crew.

"It seems we lost ALL of our crew," Ashlyn responded quietly.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Lt. Linkletter said sympathetically, "Well go ahead and rest up, but please come and talk to me again as soon as you're ready. I'm afraid we need your help."

Duncan responded before Ashlyn could. "That's why we came. Private Wilfred told us that you need help and sent us this way." Linkletter smiled at this.

"That Wilfred is one promising young fellow. Well then in that case," He then plunged into a long-winded explanation of the state of the battle against Valindra. They had managed to fend off Valindra's main force, but the battlefield was scattered with numerous undead wandering around with little purpose. Apparently, necromancers were raising Linkletter's fallen soldiers to fight against them. Someone by the name of Acolyte Neyman was working on a ritual to lay the recently fallen to rest. Linkletter was worried that the undead forces were going to try to attack before the ritual could take place. He said, "I am needed here to make sure that Neyman is able to finish her ritual. Could you go to Dell McCourt's camp and inform them of our situation?"

"Of course." Ashlyn said, and as she turned to leave, Lt. Linkletter added, "Also, if you happen across any wounded soldiers, please help them and send them this way."

Ashlyn looked back at him kindly and nodded before leaving for the battlefield behind Duncan.

Right away they found a wounded man writhing on the ground in pain. He had a huge gash in his thigh and it had started to turn black. It looked like it was infected. Duncan ripped a strip of cloth from his shirt as he knelt down next to the man. He reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of alcohol.

"You carry around alcohol?" Ashlyn asked in a disdainful voice.

"I'm a pirate." He replied acidly, as if that explained everything; however, Ashlyn didn't remember ever seeing Duncan drunk or even in the process of drinking. "This may hurt." He said to the man softly. The amount of concern in Duncan's face and voice surprised Ashlyn to the point that she was speechless. She was beginning to wonder why it was that she didn't like Duncan. Once Duncan had bound the wound, he looked up at her. "Well? Why are you just standing around? Help me help him up." Duncan demanded. Oh. That was why. Because he was so damn bossy. But now was not the time to have the discussion about the right and wrong way to ask someone for assistance. Ashlyn knelt down on the other side of the man so that she and Duncan could help him to his feet. They attempted to assist him back to Linkletter's camp, but the man brushed them off. He thanked them for helping, but said that there were men worse off than him out there and to go find them.

They continued to keep an eye out for people as they made their way to McCourt's camp. Duncan was too late getting to one man and he died right in front of them. Ashlyn sent a prayer to Ohgma before they continued searching. The undead were everywhere, although they were spaced out and wandering around in ones and twos. Duncan was a whole lot braver about fighting them than Ashlyn was. In one motion, Duncan would leap at them, tackle them to the ground and decapitate them like it was nothing.

When Ashlyn engaged in combat, she would simply shoot balls of arcane energy and beams of ice from afar. Although Ashlyn knew that that was how wizards were supposed to fight, she still didn't like how Duncan killed three zombies for every one that she killed, and she wished that she could join him up close. They found two more people before they got to McCourt's camp. Ashlyn and Duncan did their best with first aid before helping them get back to safety.

McCourt was waiting for them when they walked through the gates. "Thank you for assisting the wounded. They wouldn't have made it without you two." He must have been watching them.

"It's no problem at all, sir." Ashlyn responded, and Duncan relayed Lt. Linkletter's message to Dell McCourt, who nodded thoughtfully.

After a moment's deliberation, McCourt finally said, "I'll try to send some reinforcements with supplies to Linkletter as soon as I can, but we have some problems here too. We have archers being led by Private Hawthidon to try and drive off the Red Wizards who are summoning undead. They're running low on arrows. We need someone to scour the battlefield and recover as many arrows as you can."

"We can do that," Duncan quickly volunteered. Ashlyn could tell that he was eager to help, which further confused her. On the ship, he had always seemed dark and unapproachable and a lot of the times rude and bossy. She always avoided him because she couldn't take a two minute break from the hard work on the ship without him treating her like she was the laziest person aboard. He acted as though she went around asking everyone for special treatment simply because she was a girl when in reality, she had never asked for special treatment one time. Now, he wanted nothing more than to help people, and he was so concerned for these strangers' safety.

Ashlyn hadn't even noticed she'd been staring at Duncan until he met her eyes. He raised his eyebrow and said, "Uhh. You ready?" She mentally shook herself, nodded once and followed him back out to the battlefield.

The two quickly found a dead Red Wizard with three arrows in him. Ashlyn bent to pick them up when two undead came up behind her and tried to attack her. She yelped, but before they could touch her, Duncan was there. He lunged at the first and stabbed it multiple times in quick succession. Ashlyn marveled at his speed. He moved so fast, seeming to almost teleport from one to the other. In less than a second, he had already stabbed a dagger into the second creature's throat and was bringing the dagger down on the top of its head. Both of the zombies fell and Duncan looked down at Ashlyn. "What's taking you so long? They need those arrows as soon as possible."

Ashlyn blushed and glared at him. "I was just making sure you could handle yourself," she lied, knowing that she had been staring yet again. If she wasn't careful, Duncan was going to get the idea in his head that she was attracted to him. Ashlyn couldn't read the expression on Duncan's face. Was it smugness or annoyance? She wasn't sure but either way it irritated her. She got to her feet, stored the three arrows in her pack, and they moved on to the next arrow-filled body. As quickly as possible, they picked their way around the battlefield. It wasn't too difficult dodging the undead to get to the bodies, and Ashlyn was getting braver about fighting them when she had to.

By the time that they reached Private Hawthidon, they had collected eighteen arrows in all. As Ashlyn offered the arrows to the Private, he said, "Oh you found some! Thank you very much. Put them over there in one of the barrels near the archers." Ashlyn went to follow his directions while Duncan stayed to see what else they could do. Ashlyn could hear Hawthidon saying to him, "Thank you so much for the help." He explained about the undead on Sleeping Dragon Bridge, and how the bridge led to Protector's Enclave, the heart of Neverwinter. He warned that these undead were a lot stronger. "Go fend off the undead soldiers at the gate so can open it safely again."

Ashlyn bit her lip as she walked back to them. Duncan could see Ashlyn's hesitation, and he eyed her doubtfully. "You're not scared are you, Lady Pink?" The word 'Lady' was said with such a tone of sarcasm, Ashlyn knew that it was an insult. She gave him a hard look.

"Of course I'm not scared. I'm just… preparing myself. And I'm tired of your implications that my being a woman means that I can't handle myself, by the way. Cut it out."

He gave her that smirk that made her want to smack him. "Well let's go then," he said and bent into a half bow, holding his arms out as if to say 'after you'.

She exhaled angrily, and headed for the bridge with her nose in the air, Duncan at her heels. The undead swarmed them immediately. Ashlyn froze one of the zombies with a shard of ice, giving Duncan time to leap at it. He quickly sunk one of his daggers into its face and jumped off of its shoulders, aiming for another one, and landed on its chest dagger first. Ashlyn had been working on freezing a zombie with an ice beam. As soon as it turned to ice, Duncan rammed his dagger into the creature's solidly frozen stomach and it shattered. He then dashed to another one, evading a zombie that had come up behind him. While it was distracted, Ashlyn flung arcane orbs at it, causing it to stumble back a few feet. It hissed at her as the spells hit, and began targeting her instead. She teleported backwards a little ways while quickly throwing more arcane spells at it. It fell as Duncan finished cutting down his last zombie, and they were free to approach the gate. Surprisingly, Private Wilfred was waiting for them.

"Hello, Private," Ashlyn greeted him with a smile, "It's nice to see you again."

He nodded at them in greeting, and replied, "Glad to see you two made it safely."

Duncan returned Wilfred's nod, "Back atcha."

There were a lot of undead leading up to the bridge, and just as Hawthidon had warned, they were a lot stronger than previous monsters. It seemed that Ashlyn, Duncan, and Wilfred fought well together. The first thing that the trio encountered was a line of archers with bows ready to fire. Ashlyn launched missiles of ice at the zombified archers and then teleported backwards as they froze, allowing Duncan and Wilfred to rush the immobile monsters. While they were preoccupied with the archers, a group of undead soldiers charged at them. Ashlyn tried to fight them off, but was knocked to the ground by a shield. She quickly began to realize that her magic was not made to kill large groups of people, but rather to slow them down or halt them giving people that she was fighting with time to kill them. This was why it was so much easier for Duncan, and Wilfred as well, to take them out in larger numbers. Their fighting styles were made for that. She bought time until the other two could help by slowing the zombies with beams of ice. She followed the beams with arcane orbs, and managed to take down a few herself. It wasn't long before Duncan and Wilfred jumped in to finish the job.

They were almost to the bridge. Another line of archers was the only thing standing in the way. The three knew exactly what to do. An earsplitting roar echoed out of the gatehouse after the last few archers fell. Ashlyn turned in the direction of the sound to find a giant undead Harbinger stomping toward them. Ashlyn gasped and Duncan cursed under his breath. Wilfred, however, charged at the beast with a loud battle cry without waiting for Ashlyn and Duncan.

Ashlyn yelled "Private Wilfred!" at the same time that Duncan shouted, "No!" The Harbinger didn't even flinch. It simply swatted the Private out of the way as if he were a fly. Wilfred flew several feet before landing hard on his back, and sliding into the wall head first.

Duncan and Ashlyn winced in unison. Duncan growled, "Come on. We have to defeat this thing so we can help him." Ashlyn nodded once sharply, and together, they charged at the beast as well. When the Harbinger flung its arm out at Duncan as it had done to Wilfred, Duncan was ready. He jumped onto its arm and used it as a spring board to sink a dagger into its head. Ashlyn shot a beam of ice at it. It took longer to freeze the Harbinger than it had rest of the undead because it was so big, but after slowing its movement and attacks, eventually it was solid. While it was frozen, Duncan unleashed a flurry of attacks all over the Harbinger's body. The attacks were so fast, Ashlyn was only able to catch flashes and shadows of him. Just as Duncan landed the last blow and back flipped off the beast's chest, it broke free of the ice, sending pieces of jagged shards everywhere. Ashlyn teleported backward out of range, then ran in an arc around it, firing orb after orb of arcane magic at the beast. The Harbinger brought both of its fists down feet in front of Ashlyn. She would have been crushed by them, but she quickly teleported backward. She hurled three ice shards at it mid-dash while it was still bringing itself back up to full height, freezing its legs, then arms, then the rest of its body. It was now frozen, giving Ashlyn the perfect amount of time to charge her attack. She spread her hands wide, her orb floating between them. As she brought her hands together, she yelled, "WOLF, JUMP!" and slammed her fists into the ground just like the Harbinger had seconds before. Duncan leaped into the air just in time. One huge, jagged glacier exploded from the ground under it , knocking it airborne and sending it flying.

"Nice!" Duncan shouted as he charged at the beast while it was still on its back. Ashlyn could tell that it was almost done. It began to struggle to its feet before Duncan could get there, so Ashlyn shot an icy beam at it. This slowed it down enough that Duncan got to it before it was fully on its feet. He delivered the final blow with his dagger through its heart. With one final roar, the Harbinger toppled to the ground and grew still.

"Yes!" Ashlyn cried triumphantly. They heard a groan behind them. Both turned to find that Private Wilfred hadn't moved at all that whole time. They rushed to his side to hear him quietly whimpering as he struggled to breathe.

"That was a great fight, you two. I… should have been more cautious," the Private's voice was fading.

"Shhhh," Ashlyn said quietly while Duncan murmured, "Just lay still, Private. We'll go get help. Wait h—"

"No!" He was interrupted by Private Wilfred. "You… won't make it back in time. Go to the city… find Sergeant Knox. He is one of the best guards of Neverwinter. Tell him… Tell him what happened… ask him to please check on my mother from time to time. You guys have to protect Neverwinter. If we fail here… Valindra will rule. You have… to stop her…"

Tears welled up in Ashlyn's eyes as Private Wilfred's last breath left his body. "We have to stop her, Wolf."

"Let's go find Sergeant Knox," He agreed.

As they got to their feet, Ashlyn whispered, "I'm sorry, Wilfred," and Duncan added to that, "May Selune help you rest in peace."

Together, they opened the gates, and entered Protector's Enclave.


	2. Chapter 1 - Death of the Loved

Ashlyn regained consciousness very slowly. The first thing she noticed was the burning sensation of salt in the space between her mouth and nose, telling her that she had swallowed a lot of ocean water. The next thing she noticed was that she was aching all over. This was mostly likely a result of being dragged onto the beach by a strong current of water. A groan escaped Ashlyn. She opened her hazel eyes to see a clear blue sky above her. The disgusting smell of rotting flesh filled her nose. After a second, Ashlyn struggled to her feet. Waves of dizziness washed over her. She hunched over a bit with her hand on her head, trying to wait for the world to stop spinning. It only took a few moments for it to pass. She then took in her surroundings.

She was on a beach. The smoke from _Selune's Ryu_ was still visible over the water. There was a forest to Ashlyn's left, and a man a few yards in front of her gazing out at the wreckage. She turned in a slow circle, searching for any signs of the rest of the crew. As she did this, she absently combed her fingers through her long red hair. Her hair was a thick, tangled mess and so full of salt and sand that it was scratching the small of her back where the current had torn her shirt. There was no one except that man around. Was she the only one that had survived the dracolich attack? The memory of Duncan pulling her over the side of the ship and into the water flashed through her mind. He had saved her.

A hand fell on her shoulder then. She spun around swiftly with her fist pulled back. She found herself looking into blue eyes for the second time today.

"Woah. Watch it." Duncan said, pushing her fist down to her side. "You might hurt yourself."

Ashlyn exhaled, half in relief and half in annoyance. Of course the first thing that he would say after they had survived something so terrible would be insultinig. He was so inconsiderate. And he, the inconsiderate and rude Lonewolf, of all people, had saved her.

Ashlyn gave him an odd look. She supposed that she should thank him. She wanted to know if he had seen any of the rest of the crew while he was sneaking up behind her. Instead of saying anything important or that mattered at all, she blurted, "Why did you save me?" Duncan's eyebrows shot up, then he narrowed his eyes at her and crossed his arms.

"You're welcome." It was clear to Ashlyn that Duncan thought her ungrateful, and Ashlyn was definitely not that. So, sighing heavily, she mumbled, "Thanks." After an awkward pause of staring into his smug face while waiting for a kinder 'you're welcome' that didn't come, Ashlyn glared at him. "Well? Where's the rest of the crew?" she asked, not bothering to be so kind. This question seemed to deflate Duncan. He frowned, and Ashlyn already knew the answer before he shook his head. So he didn't know. He was pretty sure they didn't make it. Ashlyn tried not to connect the rotting smell with the loss of their crewmates.

A moment of mournful silence passed before Duncan huffed, "At least we made it to land and both of us are alive. That's more than I had dared hope. Let's ask that guy where we are." With that, he headed toward the man that Ashlyn had seen earlier. The man was now watching them warily. Ashlyn began to realize that even though Duncan was being rude and smug about the whole thing, he had saved her life. And that put her in his debt. Not only that, but he hadn't simply abandoned her afterward. He had looked for her after the wreck and, in hindsight, had actually looked relieved when he found her alive. Sighing, she followed him.

"Hello," Duncan was saying, "I'm Wolf. I'm from the crew of the _Selune's Ryu_." The man's eyes flicked to Ashlyn.

"Oh. I'm Pink. Also a crew member. Um. You haven't seen anyone else around here, have you?" Ashlyn asked, her heart still clinging to hope.

"No, ma'am. But thank the gods that you two are alive. I was so afraid no one would survive as I watched the dracolich attack the ship." He paused, then continued to both of them, "I'm Private Wilfred. What would make you two sail to Neverwinter during times such as these?" So they were near Neverwinter. That was across the continent of Faerun from where Ashlyn was born.

Duncan and Ashlyn exchanged a look. Ashlyn was the first to answer. "Well… we're from Faerun, but a different part. We have been at sea for quite a while."

The look of defiance on Duncan's face said it all. Ashlyn knew that he was about to be rude again, but he spoke before she could stop him, "But I don't see how that's your business," Gods, this guy was so off-putting, Ashlyn could hardly stand it.

Private Wilfred hesitated and said, "Well welcome home… I suppose. I can guarantee you adventure if you stay to help. You may even find riches. You may have noticed that Neverwinter is under attack by a necromancer. Her name is Valindra. She conjured that has been assaulting the city with her legions of undead."

That must also be where that awful smell was coming from. That gave Ashlyn the tiniest feeling of relief. There was still a glimmer of hope that the crew hadn't all died. Who's to say how long Wilfred had been standing here? He may have missed them. An army of undead was bound to spread that terrible smell. Ashlyn wavered for a second. WIlfred said that Neverwinter needed help fighting the undead, but she was terrified of the zombies. Her nightmares were full of them. She chewed on her lip for a second before resolving herself to the greater good and the promise of adventure. She said to the Private, "We would be happy to help you in any way that we can." Duncan nodded in agreement, almost as if he had been waiting for her answer.

Grateful, Private Wilfred gestured behind him and suggested that they search the wreckage for whatever was left of their gear. Ashlyn's eyes followed the direction in which he had motioned and recognized the weathered boxes that had washed up on the shore from their ship. "You shouldn't be wandering around unarmed. It's dangerous." Private Wilfred explained, and then he said, "When you finish, head up to the camp at the top of the hill. They've got a nice warm fire up there. You'll feel better once you've dried off."

Ashlyn and Duncan made their way toward the washed up wreckage after thanking Private Wilfred for his help. "This is crazy, Wolf," Ashlyn mumbled as they opened the boxes on the shore. "We just fought a dragon. Our ship is sunk, and we have no more crew. What are we going to do?" She asked as she pulled robes out of one of the boxes, her voice trembling a bit.

Duncan sighed and answered in a low voice, "We'll be ok. Stop panicking." He paused for a second, contemplating his next words. "You could always just stay at the camp. Wouldn't want you hurting yourself. I can come to get you when I've figured something out." He offered her an orb and until then, she hadn't even noticed that her previous Orb was gone. Now she remembered that it had been crushed into dust before they had even jumped into the water. This one was cracked, but it would have to do. At her touch, the orb floated up by her head, level with her slightly pointed ears. She opened her mouth to protest Duncan's implication that she couldn't handle herself, but before she could say anything, he grabbed a tarp and held it up. "Go ahead and put your dry robes on." Ashlyn must have looked surprised because he smirked. "Come on, Pink. You will be warmer." Duncan had already equipped his extra pair of daggers to his belt, and while she hadn't been looking had pulled on his new robes.

Ashlyn narrowed her eyes in distrust. "Wolf," she threatened, "if you peek, a dracolich and a sunken ship will be the least of your problems." He rolled his eyes at this, making it quite obvious that he didn't feel threatened by her at all. Duncan must have known that she was serious, though, because he made a show of closing his eyes and pulling the tarp up far enough so that it was above his head, but still blocked her from the view of anyone else. Once she was done, they headed up the hill toward the camp.

As they entered the camp, soldiers turned to look at them, assessing them. This made Ashlyn nervous because Duncan was very intimidating. He had dark skin and dread locks that hung down on both sides of his face. He always carried himself with an air of 'I'm-better-than-you' while his hands always seemed to be ready to unsheathe his daggers at a moment's notice. Either Ashlyn's small frame and unintimidating stance cancelled out Duncan's daunting look, or the pair of them must be in worse shape than she thought. The soldiers didn't do or say anything. They simply returned to whatever they had been doing as if there hadn't been an interruption.

Ashlyn pointed to the campfire. She and Duncan went to stand by it. The warmth of it washed over Ashlyn as soon as they got close, and she could practically feel the rosiness returning to her pale skin. Her hair was almost dry, and it was beginning to feel much softer than she had expected, though she still needed a comb for the tangled mess that the sea had turned it into. She turned to look at Duncan, who was in the process of squeezing excess water out of his dreadlocks. As soon as they were both warm and relatively dry, they approached the man who seemed to be in charge.

"Excuse me, sir," Ashlyn said as they approached him, "I'm Pink and this is Wolf."

"Hello. I'm glad to see that someone survived that ship wreck! I'm Lieutenant Linkletter," He said as an introduction.

"You saw that from here?" Duncan asked, and when the Lieutenant responded with a nod, Duncan added, "Has anyone else come through here?" This earned a glance from Ashlyn. This was the first time he had even expressed interest in finding the rest of the crew. So he did care.

"Sorry, no. You lost some of your crew, did you?" Linkletter guessed. This lieutenant appeared to be a pretty perceptive guy. Within seconds he had been able to tell that they were from the ship wreck and that the people Duncan had asked about were their crew.

"It seems we lost ALL of our crew," Ashlyn responded quietly.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Lt. Linkletter said sympathetically, "Well go ahead and rest up, but please come and talk to me again as soon as you're ready. I'm afraid we need your help."

Duncan responded before Ashlyn could. "That's why we came. Private Wilfred told us that you need help and sent us this way." Linkletter smiled at this.

"That Wilfred is one promising young fellow. Well then in that case," He then plunged into a long-winded explanation of the state of the battle against Valindra. They had managed to fend off Valindra's main force, but the battlefield was scattered with numerous undead wandering around with little purpose. Apparently, necromancers were raising Linkletter's fallen soldiers to fight against them. Someone by the name of Acolyte Neyman was working on a ritual to lay the recently fallen to rest. Linkletter was worried that the undead forces were going to try to attack before the ritual could take place. He said, "I am needed here to make sure that Neyman is able to finish her ritual. Could you go to Dell McCourt's camp and inform them of our situation?"

"Of course." Ashlyn said, and as she turned to leave, Lt. Linkletter added, "Also, if you happen across any wounded soldiers, please help them and send them this way."

Ashlyn looked back at him kindly and nodded before leaving for the battlefield behind Duncan.

Right away they found a wounded man writhing on the ground in pain. He had a huge gash in his thigh and it had started to turn black. It looked like it was infected. Duncan ripped a strip of cloth from his shirt as he knelt down next to the man. He reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of alcohol.

"You carry around alcohol?" Ashlyn asked in a disdainful voice.

"I'm a pirate." He replied acidly, as if that explained everything; however, Ashlyn didn't remember ever seeing Duncan drunk or even in the process of drinking. "This may hurt." He said to the man softly. The amount of concern in Duncan's face and voice surprised Ashlyn to the point that she was speechless. She was beginning to wonder why it was that she didn't like Duncan. Once Duncan had bound the wound, he looked up at her. "Well? Why are you just standing around? Help me help him up." Duncan demanded. Oh. That was why. Because he was so damn bossy. But now was not the time to have the discussion about the right and wrong way to ask someone for assistance. Ashlyn knelt down on the other side of the man so that she and Duncan could help him to his feet. They attempted to assist him back to Linkletter's camp, but the man brushed them off. He thanked them for helping, but said that there were men worse off than him out there and to go find them.

They continued to keep an eye out for people as they made their way to McCourt's camp. Duncan was too late getting to one man and he died right in front of them. Ashlyn sent a prayer to Ohgma before they continued searching. The undead were everywhere, although they were spaced out and wandering around in ones and twos. Duncan was a whole lot braver about fighting them than Ashlyn was. In one motion, Duncan would leap at them, tackle them to the ground and decapitate them like it was nothing.

When Ashlyn engaged in combat, she would simply shoot balls of arcane energy and beams of ice from afar. Although Ashlyn knew that that was how wizards were supposed to fight, she still didn't like how Duncan killed three zombies for every one that she killed, and she wished that she could join him up close. They found two more people before they got to McCourt's camp. Ashlyn and Duncan did their best with first aid before helping them get back to safety.

McCourt was waiting for them when they walked through the gates. "Thank you for assisting the wounded. They wouldn't have made it without you two." He must have been watching them.

"It's no problem at all, sir." Ashlyn responded, and Duncan relayed Lt. Linkletter's message to Dell McCourt, who nodded thoughtfully.

After a moment's deliberation, McCourt finally said, "I'll try to send some reinforcements with supplies to Linkletter as soon as I can, but we have some problems here too. We have archers being led by Private Hawthidon to try and drive off the Red Wizards who are summoning undead. They're running low on arrows. We need someone to scour the battlefield and recover as many arrows as you can."

"We can do that," Duncan quickly volunteered. Ashlyn could tell that he was eager to help, which further confused her. On the ship, he had always seemed dark and unapproachable and a lot of the times rude and bossy. She always avoided him because she couldn't take a two minute break from the hard work on the ship without him treating her like she was the laziest person aboard. He acted as though she went around asking everyone for special treatment simply because she was a girl when in reality, she had never asked for special treatment one time. Now, he wanted nothing more than to help people, and he was so concerned for these strangers' safety.

Ashlyn hadn't even noticed she'd been staring at Duncan until he met her eyes. He raised his eyebrow and said, "Uhh. You ready?" She mentally shook herself, nodded once and followed him back out to the battlefield.

The two quickly found a dead Red Wizard with three arrows in him. Ashlyn bent to pick them up when two undead came up behind her and tried to attack her. She yelped, but before they could touch her, Duncan was there. He lunged at the first and stabbed it multiple times in quick succession. Ashlyn marveled at his speed. He moved so fast, seeming to almost teleport from one to the other. In less than a second, he had already stabbed a dagger into the second creature's throat and was bringing the dagger down on the top of its head. Both of the zombies fell and Duncan looked down at Ashlyn. "What's taking you so long? They need those arrows as soon as possible."

Ashlyn blushed and glared at him. "I was just making sure you could handle yourself," she lied, knowing that she had been staring yet again. If she wasn't careful, Duncan was going to get the idea in his head that she was attracted to him. Ashlyn couldn't read the expression on Duncan's face. Was it smugness or annoyance? She wasn't sure but either way it irritated her. She got to her feet, stored the three arrows in her pack, and they moved on to the next arrow-filled body. As quickly as possible, they picked their way around the battlefield. It wasn't too difficult dodging the undead to get to the bodies, and Ashlyn was getting braver about fighting them when she had to.

By the time that they reached Private Hawthidon, they had collected eighteen arrows in all. As Ashlyn offered the arrows to the Private, he said, "Oh you found some! Thank you very much. Put them over there in one of the barrels near the archers." Ashlyn went to follow his directions while Duncan stayed to see what else they could do. Ashlyn could hear Hawthidon saying to him, "Thank you so much for the help." He explained about the undead on Sleeping Dragon Bridge, and how the bridge led to Protector's Enclave, the heart of Neverwinter. He warned that these undead were a lot stronger. "Go fend off the undead soldiers at the gate so can open it safely again."

Ashlyn bit her lip as she walked back to them. Duncan could see Ashlyn's hesitation, and he eyed her doubtfully. "You're not scared are you, Lady Pink?" The word 'Lady' was said with such a tone of sarcasm, Ashlyn knew that it was an insult. She gave him a hard look.

"Of course I'm not scared. I'm just… preparing myself. And I'm tired of your implications that my being a woman means that I can't handle myself, by the way. Cut it out."

He gave her that smirk that made her want to smack him. "Well let's go then," he said and bent into a half bow, holding his arms out as if to say 'after you'.

She exhaled angrily, and headed for the bridge with her nose in the air, Duncan at her heels. The undead swarmed them immediately. Ashlyn froze one of the zombies with a shard of ice, giving Duncan time to leap at it. He quickly sunk one of his daggers into its face and jumped off of its shoulders, aiming for another one, and landed on its chest dagger first. Ashlyn had been working on freezing a zombie with an ice beam. As soon as it turned to ice, Duncan rammed his dagger into the creature's solidly frozen stomach and it shattered. He then dashed to another one, evading a zombie that had come up behind him. While it was distracted, Ashlyn flung arcane orbs at it, causing it to stumble back a few feet. It hissed at her as the spells hit, and began targeting her instead. She teleported backwards a little ways while quickly throwing more arcane spells at it. It fell as Duncan finished cutting down his last zombie, and they were free to approach the gate. Surprisingly, Private Wilfred was waiting for them.

"Hello, Private," Ashlyn greeted him with a smile, "It's nice to see you again."

He nodded at them in greeting, and replied, "Glad to see you two made it safely."

Duncan returned Wilfred's nod, "Back atcha."

There were a lot of undead leading up to the bridge, and just as Hawthidon had warned, they were a lot stronger than previous monsters. It seemed that Ashlyn, Duncan, and Wilfred fought well together. The first thing that the trio encountered was a line of archers with bows ready to fire. Ashlyn launched missiles of ice at the zombified archers and then teleported backwards as they froze, allowing Duncan and Wilfred to rush the immobile monsters. While they were preoccupied with the archers, a group of undead soldiers charged at them. Ashlyn tried to fight them off, but was knocked to the ground by a shield. She quickly began to realize that her magic was not made to kill large groups of people, but rather to slow them down or halt them giving people that she was fighting with time to kill them. This was why it was so much easier for Duncan, and Wilfred as well, to take them out in larger numbers. Their fighting styles were made for that. She bought time until the other two could help by slowing the zombies with beams of ice. She followed the beams with arcane orbs, and managed to take down a few herself. It wasn't long before Duncan and Wilfred jumped in to finish the job.

They were almost to the bridge. Another line of archers was the only thing standing in the way. The three knew exactly what to do. An earsplitting roar echoed out of the gatehouse after the last few archers fell. Ashlyn turned in the direction of the sound to find a giant undead Harbinger stomping toward them. Ashlyn gasped and Duncan cursed under his breath. Wilfred, however, charged at the beast with a loud battle cry without waiting for Ashlyn and Duncan.

Ashlyn yelled "Private Wilfred!" at the same time that Duncan shouted, "No!" The Harbinger didn't even flinch. It simply swatted the Private out of the way as if he were a fly. Wilfred flew several feet before landing hard on his back, and sliding into the wall head first.

Duncan and Ashlyn winced in unison. Duncan growled, "Come on. We have to defeat this thing so we can help him." Ashlyn nodded once sharply, and together, they charged at the beast as well. When the Harbinger flung its arm out at Duncan as it had done to Wilfred, Duncan was ready. He jumped onto its arm and used it as a spring board to sink a dagger into its head. Ashlyn shot a beam of ice at it. It took longer to freeze the Harbinger than it had rest of the undead because it was so big, but after slowing its movement and attacks, eventually it was solid. While it was frozen, Duncan unleashed a flurry of attacks all over the Harbinger's body. The attacks were so fast, Ashlyn was only able to catch flashes and shadows of him. Just as Duncan landed the last blow and back flipped off the beast's chest, it broke free of the ice, sending pieces of jagged shards everywhere. Ashlyn teleported backward out of range, then ran in an arc around it, firing orb after orb of arcane magic at the beast. The Harbinger brought both of its fists down feet in front of Ashlyn. She would have been crushed by them, but she quickly teleported backward. She hurled three ice shards at it mid-dash while it was still bringing itself back up to full height, freezing its legs, then arms, then the rest of its body. It was now frozen, giving Ashlyn the perfect amount of time to charge her attack. She spread her hands wide, her orb floating between them. As she brought her hands together, she yelled, "WOLF, JUMP!" and slammed her fists into the ground just like the Harbinger had seconds before. Duncan leaped into the air just in time. One huge, jagged glacier exploded from the ground under it , knocking it airborne and sending it flying.

"Nice!" Duncan shouted as he charged at the beast while it was still on its back. Ashlyn could tell that it was almost done. It began to struggle to its feet before Duncan could get there, so Ashlyn shot an icy beam at it. This slowed it down enough that Duncan got to it before it was fully on its feet. He delivered the final blow with his dagger through its heart. With one final roar, the Harbinger toppled to the ground and grew still.

"Yes!" Ashlyn cried triumphantly. They heard a groan behind them. Both turned to find that Private Wilfred hadn't moved at all that whole time. They rushed to his side to hear him quietly whimpering as he struggled to breathe.

"That was a great fight, you two. I… should have been more cautious," the Private's voice was fading.

"Shhhh," Ashlyn said quietly while Duncan murmured, "Just lay still, Private. We'll go get help. Wait h—"

"No!" He was interrupted by Private Wilfred. "You… won't make it back in time. Go to the city… find Sergeant Knox. He is one of the best guards of Neverwinter. Tell him… Tell him what happened… ask him to please check on my mother from time to time. You guys have to protect Neverwinter. If we fail here… Valindra will rule. You have… to stop her…"

Tears welled up in Ashlyn's eyes as Private Wilfred's last breath left his body. "We have to stop her, Wolf."

"Let's go find Sergeant Knox," He agreed.

As they got to their feet, Ashlyn whispered, "I'm sorry, Wilfred," and Duncan added to that, "May Selune help you rest in peace."

Together, they opened the gates, and entered Protector's Enclave.


	3. Chapter 2 - Riches and a Stolen Crown

"Wilfred is dead?" a shadow passed over Sergeant Knox's face at hearing this news. It had taken more time than Duncan had hoped to find Sergeant Knox once he and Ashlyn got into the city. The main reason being that Ashlyn had never been in such a huge city before. Duncan had been to plenty of large cities, and so he had to tow her away from the numerous shops that they walked past. Ashlyn, being as stubborn as she is, put up a fight. Especially when they passed the pet merchant. Duncan had had to promise her that he would personally buy her a pet if it would get her to shut up and keep moving. Ashlyn wasn't even bothered by him telling her to shut up or by the fact that it was probably a lie because she was too in awe of the city around her.

The more stores that they passed, the more Ashlyn lost sight of why they were in Protector's Enclave in the first place. This seemed to, understandably, annoy Duncan a whole lot. After saying 'can we keep moving please', with a strained voice at the word please, for what seemed like the thousandth time (and Ashlyn telling him to stop nagging for what seemed like the thousandth time), he took Ashlyn firmly by the shoulders, turning her so that she would be forced to look at him.

"Private Wilfred just DIED, Pink. His last request was for us to find Sergeant Knox."

Ashlyn shoved him away angrily. "How dare you grab me like that! That hurt!" she said, shocked. She could feel the blood rushing back through her arms almost painfully. She knew Duncan was rude, but seriously? Ashlyn didn't think that he was one to mistreat women. Duncan took a step back after realizing how close to Ashlyn's face he had been, but he was still visibly irritated. However rude of him it was, it had had the effect that Duncan had no doubt wanted. She realized that they had more pressing matters at hand than what robes to buy next. Rubbing her arms where he had gripped her so tightly, she huffed at him and made the mistake of saying, "You act as if I'm stopping at every store." It wasn't until then that she realized that she had, in fact, been stopping at every store. Duncan didn't even bother to answer that; he simply narrowed his eyes at her, lifted his chin in aggravation, and crossed his arms, at which point Ashlyn clicked her tongue before saying, "Fine, fine. I get it. You're right... I'm sorry."

She then trailed behind him, chewing on the inside of her cheek and trying not to let her hurt feelings show. She realized that she had been the one in the wrong and was now acting like a child, but she hated realizing she was wrong, and moreover, she hated realizing that Duncan was right. She especially hated the fact that she hadn't even thought about Wilfred once since entering the city. She felt horrible, and that more than anything was causing her to pout. However, Duncan didn't know this. He stopped walking and turned to face her.

"Pink…" He began. He had been trying to ignore her, but it seemed that it was harder than he wanted it to be. She was making a point of not looking at him. Because of his tone, Ashlyn was half-expecting him to apologize. She should have known better than that, though. Instead of apologizing, he threw his hands up in frustration and said, "Let's just go finish this and see if Sergeant Knox needs anything from us." He paused for a second, and some emotion crossed his face too quickly for Ashlyn to place. "After that, we can go our separate ways and you can shop all you want to." Whatever Ashlyn had been expecting, it certainly wasn't this. Go their separate ways? So he was just going to leave her like that?

"Fine," she snapped, and stomped past him. It wasn't like she wanted to be around him for any longer than she had to anyway. Now it was Duncan's turn to trail behind Ashlyn with wounded feelings. The difference was that Ashlyn had been too busy throwing her tantrum to notice.

A few seemingly long minutes later, they had found Sergeant Knox. Duncan was now showing Ashlyn no emotion. He explained everything to Knox, who didn't take it well. "Yes, he is." Duncan replied to Sergeant Knox's outburst, "But he was brave all the way to the end. He died an honorable death."

"Damnation!" Knox spat. He took a second to recover his composure before continuing, "I'm sorry. He was too young to lose his life. Thank you for what you did to protect this city. We very well could have lost Protector's Enclave if the Harbinger had managed to breach the walls." Knox paused to shake both of their hands before continuing, "This city is indebted to you. I don't have much to give you as thanks, but there are some things in the chest behind me that I'm sure you could use." Ashlyn eyed the chest behind the Sergeant. She looked up at Duncan questioningly, who was still acting stony toward her. He simply shrugged and went to open it.

"Oh wow!" Duncan exclaimed.

"What? What is it?" Ashlyn asked with peaked interest. When she got close enough to the chest, she saw all kinds of weapons inside. Even weapons that she had never seen before. Duncan reached in and pulled out two daggers that looked to be in much better condition than his current one. Reaching back in, Duncan pulled out an orb for Ashlyn, who smiled. After she stored her current orb in her bag, she excitedly touched the orb. Her smile widened as it grew warm and circled around her a few times to hover above her head. Ashlyn never got tired of the feeling that came with equipping a new orb. It was as if the orb came alive at her touch.

Ashlyn turned back to Sergeant Knox, who had been watching them. "Thank you," She said kindly.

"No. Thank you. We lost a good bit of people today and I imagine that the Enclave is still in danger due to the Harbinger's appearance in such close proximity. I understand that a lot of your supplies were lost in your ship wreck. I would like to do one more thing for you," Sergeant Knox handed Ashlyn a note, then pointed to a tunnel across from where he was standing, "Supply Sergeant Quinn is through that tunnel. He'll have some better clothes for you. Find him and give him this note so that he knows I sent you."

"Thank you very much, Sergeant," Duncan said, then Ashlyn followed him to the tunnel. They were silent almost the entire five or so minutes that it took to walk to Sergeant Quinn. Ashlyn was still annoyed that Duncan wanted to leave her. Even though they had never really gotten along, he was the only thing left that was familiar to her after the ship wreck. At one point, Duncan broke the silence by wondering aloud what type of clothes they were going to get. Although Ashlyn had been wondering the same thing, she didn't answer. They had never had clothes that were made specifically for their fighting styles, and Ashlyn was hoping that that was the kind of clothes they would be getting. They were going to see a supply sergeant, after all.

Once they made it out of the tunnel, they could see Sergeant Quinn right away. "Hello!" the Supply Sergeant said as they approached, "What can I do for you two?" Ashlyn handed him the note. After reading it, he said, "Knox has asked me to supply you two with some clothes. He says you two are the ones that took care of the Harbinger. I'm impressed." He gestured to the chest next to him and said, "I'm afraid it's nothing fancy, but it's more protection than what you have right now." He had obviously been discretely assessing their current armor.

As Duncan bent to open the chest, Ashlyn was suddenly nervous that he was going to be rude if it turned out to be some simple armor. She laid a hand on his shoulder and gave him a stern look as if to say, 'Don't be openly disappointed.' Rolling his eyes and shrugging her hand off, Duncan began digging through the chest. He pulled out some very nice looking robes that had two sheaths built into the waist band just for his daggers. He looked up at Sergeant Quinn in surprise, who explained, "We have many Trickster Rogues who come through here. Those are the kinds of clothes that they wear." Quinn's expectant gazed then turned to Ashlyn.

Ashlyn joined Duncan on the ground in front of the chest to find her clothes and grinned excitedly when she pulled out some robes that looked like they were made just for a magic user. Quinn laughed at her astonished expression, "There are a lot of Control Wizards around here as well," he explained. By the look on the Supply Sergeant's face, he must have been wondering how two people with such little knowledge could have defeated the Harbinger alone.

After thanking the man, Ashlyn and Duncan went into a shop across the street to change their clothes. Ashlyn was having some trouble with straps and ties on her robe. She contemplated asking Duncan for help, but with the way that he had been acting, that probably wouldn't have gone over so well. So, she took longer than she meant to trying to struggle through the armor alone. When she came out, Duncan was leaning against the wall with his eyes toward the floor as if he had been waiting all day for her. His eyes flicked upwards to her face. He had an annoyed expression at first. But upon taking in her appearance, several different emotions passed over his face. He went from slouching against the wall in annoyance to standing straight up in surprise. Then he shook his head and looked confused for a second, and finally his expression landed on one that Ashlyn couldn't read. In true Ashlyn form, she jumped straight to the worst conclusion by suspecting he was criticizing her outfit.

"What are you staring at?" she asked angrily, "Can we go now?"

"Right. Yeah. Let's go." He said. His voice had changed somehow. Ashlyn swept her hair off of her shoulder agitatedly as she walked past him. He easily matched her quickened pace. There was an awkward silence for a moment as they entered the tunnel again, which was broken by Duncan.

"So… where are you from?" he asked Ashlyn as they walked. It was then that Ashlyn realized they hadn't talked at all while they were shipmates, and knew absolutely nothing about each other. Ashlyn assumed that he didn't care about getting to know her at all. She figured he was only trying to fill the time until he could get away from her.

She didn't look at him as she said "Waterdeep."

Duncan waited, but when Ashlyn didn't elaborate, he moved on, "I see… Well, I'm from Dragon Coast." Pause. She didn't respond. "Our captain was one of my father's friends. My father set me up to be in his crew." Ashlyn didn't say anything, so he continued to another question. "So is it your mom or dad that's an Elf?" Ashlyn's eyes flicked to him in shock.

"How did you-"

"I saw your ears." He answered quickly, clearly happy that he had pulled an actual emotion out of her besides anger. He explained to her, "They're pointed enough to mean you're not human, but not enough to make you an Elf. They're like mine see? My father is an Elf." He pulled his dreads back to reveal ears that were very similar to Ashlyn's. "So…?" He prompted.

Ashlyn stopped walking to examine his ears. Yep, definitely Half-Elf. She eyed him for a second, contemplating whether or not to answer him. He was being nicer than usual, and seemed to be more interested in her than she had originally thought. Maybe she had been too hard on him the whole time. She responded with a sigh, "My mom is an Elf. Dad met her when he moved to Waterdeep," Ashlyn began walking again without another glance toward Duncan. She was confused. Duncan seemed to look pleased with himself as he once again fell into step beside her.

When they approached Sergeant Knox in their new gear, he beamed at them. "Well don't you two look ready for combat? I'm glad you're back. If you're interested, I've got some work for you."

"We'd be happy to help," Duncan said without hesitation. 'We' not 'I'. Someone had done some thinking during that short fifteen or twenty minutes.

Ashlyn looked up at him, eyes wide, "But… I thought…" she paused, more confused than ever. It had been his idea, after all. "I thought you wanted to go our separate ways."

Duncan rolled his eyes and said, "And I thought you didn't. You looked pretty upset about it. And I mean I understand why. You can't handle yourself. I get that. You need me for protection. Just call me your Knight Wolf." Ashlyn felt blood rush to her cheeks. Duncan's sarcasm really irked her. Without her permission, the thought of herself calling him 'Knight' seeped into Ashlyn's mind. No. Absolutely not. Before she could tell him exactly how much she did want to be rid of him, Duncan turned back to Sergeant Knox and asked, "What can we do for you?" Ashlyn considered walking off right then, but she realized that she really wasn't ready to leave Duncan. That, along with the fact that Sergeant Knox needed her, was why she didn't protest.

Sergeant Knox had been glancing back and forth between them the entire conversation. He now looked from one to the other and paused on Ashlyn saying, "O…kay…" He must have been wondering if she actually wanted to help or not. She didn't want him to think she didn't care. Ashlyn nodded hurriedly. At that, she could have sworn that she heard Duncan give an amused snort, which made her very badly want to stick her tongue out at him like a five year old; however, she decided against it. Sergeant Knox missed everything after Ashlyn's confirmation. He was pointing at a set of stairs while giving directions.

"There have been reports of disturbances in the vaults beneath the Hall of Justice. We don't have many guards free to send on extra duties right now. You two have proven yourselves more than capable enough to handle this. I would like it if you could check it out for me. I've already let the gate guard know to be expecting someone. If you tell him I've sent you, he will let you in."

"We're on it, Sergeant." Duncan said. He glanced at Ashlyn, their eyes met for a second, and they exchanged an unspoken conversation. Duncan's icy blue eyes seemed to ask the question, 'Are you coming?' to which Ashlyn tried to convey a 'yes'. When he walked off, Ashlyn wasn't sure if he understood, or just didn't care. Whatever the reason, Ashlyn realized that she now felt too drawn to Duncan to let him go. He was… interesting. Which was a word that she had certainly never been expecting to apply to Duncan, and also probably wasn't the word that she was actually looking for, but she refused to even think that word in regards to Duncan… yet. With a small sigh, she followed him.

Once he made it to the top of the stairs, Duncan paused to allow Ashlyn to catch up. They didn't say anything to each other as they walked side by side toward the Hall, but the silence between them was not so awkward this time. Ashlyn suspected that he was simply lost in thought about what they were about to do. They found the guard that Knox had mentioned standing under an archway. The guard stuck his arm out as if they had been about to charge right through the closed gate. With forced authority, the guard said, "Halt. Who are you?"

"We're helping Sergeant Knox," Duncan said calmly.

"With?" The tone of the guard's voice told Ashlyn that he was one of those people who exaggerate any small amount of authority in whatever position that they are given.

Ashlyn exchanged a look with Duncan. Narrowing her eyes, she began, "Sergeant Knox said he told you that-"

The guard interrupted her. "Yeah, yeah, ok, there were noises coming from inside the vaults. A guard went in to check it out, but he should have been back by now." He pulled a lever that caused the gate to slowly begin swinging open. "Go in. And look for Quartermaster Otus while you're in there. He'll be able to give you more information."

"… Okay… Thank you…" Ashlyn said as they passed through the gate. As they walked by the guard, Ashlyn could have sworn that she heard the guard mumbling something about a lack of excitement and him being able to handle it better than these wimps.

There was a set of descending stairs on the other side of the gate. Duncan led the way down the stairs and paused at the door. "I'm going to go in first, Pink. We don't know what's on the other side." Ashlyn nodded, but readied herself to attack as soon as he opened the door. Duncan had already saved her life once, and because of that, she was indebted to him. She would be ready to defend him.

Duncan opened the door very slowly and entered; Ashlyn was right on his heels. Literally. She stepped on the back of his boot. "Can you back up please?" Duncan asked in an irritated voice.

Ashlyn's temper flared "I'm sorry," sarcasm flooded her tone, "I was simply trying to be ready to defend you." The ease at which Duncan could get a rise out of her was ridiculous. She needed to learn to control herself. She took a deep breath.

"Well could you do that from a little MORE than two inches behind me? You're not doing a very good job of defending me if I'm going to be tripping all over you."

"Sorr-y," she repeated, drawing both syllables out. She said this much louder than intended. She heard her voice echo off of the walls and a group of people that had been on the other side of the door looked around at them. Neither Ashlyn nor Duncan had seen them, and vice versa. Duncan glanced back at her, clearly upset at her carelessness.

"Who the hell're you?" one of them asked, to which Duncan replied,

"I could ask you the same thing. You're not supposed to be down here."

"We're the Nashers," another man sneered, but the effect was lost when the first man punched him on the arm, giving him a look that plainly conveyed exasperation. These men were evidently rookies. Duncan leered at them as he drew his blades.

"Let us through and you won't have to die," He threatened. The menacing look on Duncan's face gave the men pause. They were visibly considering his threat. One of the bigger ones eyed Duncan like he was a piece of meat, and let out a loud amused laugh. Ashlyn glanced at Duncan's face, knowing he wouldn't like being laughed at; however, aside from a twitch at the corner of his mouth, Duncan didn't even react.

The large Nasher glared at Duncan for a good few seconds, who glared right back. Ashlyn could practically feel the electricity passing between them as they sized each other up. Much to the Nasher's clear delight, Duncan wasn't backing down. Duncan must have known what was coming because at the same time that he lowered into a half-crouch with his daggers ready at his sides, the Nasher roared, "Let's go then!" and charged at Duncan.

Duncan didn't move; he didn't even flinch. He just stayed in that half-crouch like a beautiful but menacing statue. The Nasher was still charging, closing the 10 or 15 yards between them quickly. Ashlyn was starting to get nervous, her eyes darting back and forth between Duncan and the charging Nasher. Why wasn't he doing anything? She took a step forward, but Duncan said softly, "Don't." She glanced at him anxiously. It was then that she noticed the look on his face. He was smiling! It was a bone-chilling smile. The kind that a predator would wear before it attacks its prey. He let the Nasher close the distance to a good three feet before he acted.

When he finally moved, they were the most fluid movements that Ashlyn had ever seen. She watched as if it was in slow motion. Duncan slid sideways out of his crouch, grabbed the Nasher's arm with his left hand, and slid his dagger easily along the side of the man's torso with is right. Blood began pouring out of the wound. The man let out a choked gasp, a disgusting liquid-y sound. Ashlyn imagined that Duncan had somehow gotten his dagger between the man's ribs and sliced open a lung. Those daggers must be have been extremely sharp. That was a lot of blood. Duncan then used the man's arm as leverage to swing himself up onto the Nasher's shoulders as the man fell to his knees. Duncan lifted his daggers and brought them both down into the man's head. When he pulled them out, brains spilled out everywhere.

Duncan leapt off of the man, who fell forward, facedown, and didn't move again. Duncan landed on his feet lightly, back in the same half-crouch, and facing the group of Nashers. "Who's next?" He asked in a low voice. A bubble of relieved and disbelieving laughter quickly escaped Ashlyn.

The remaining Nashers, who had been standing there wide eyed and gaping, didn't move for a second. Then one of them took a step backward, breaking the spell that Duncan's terrifying kill had put on them, and causing them to all start running in the opposite direction. Duncan cursed and took off after them at top speed.

Ashlyn lifted one of the retreating Nashers into the air. He struggled, kicking his feet and clawing at his throat. He was choking and the clawing was making matters worse. Blood was pouring down the man's throat due to the gashes from his nails. She left the man there hanging in the air, knowing he would die soon. She turned to see Duncan dashing swiftly between the three men that were left. Apparently they'd thought that they could team up on him. One had managed to get behind Duncan and was charging at him with a spear pointed at Duncan's back. Ashlyn flung a shard of ice. The Nasher froze, she teleported behind him and snapped his neck.

Duncan was so much faster than she was. He had already cut down the other two men by the time that Ashlyn had finished the one. Duncan nodded in approval at her. "Well done. You're getting better." He praised.

"You are too. The way you handled that big one… I couldn't even believe it." She said in admiration. There was a pause, and Ashlyn began giggling at the whole situation, earning a chuckle from Duncan. He really was one of the best fighters she had seen. She smiled slightly at him before clearing her throat, "Anyway. Let's get going."

"Right." Duncan responded awkwardly. He then told Ashlyn to stay close behind him, but she protested. She told him that no matter what he thought, they were equals. They would fight together. He eyed her with the same expression that Ashlyn hadn't been able to place after they had changed into their new clothes. She still didn't know what to think of it. No one had ever looked at her like that before. It was… respect or… admiration? She didn't have much time to think on it because he shrugged and agreed that they were to be equals and fight side by side. Stealthily, they followed the corridor through different rooms of the vaults that led to more corridors and rooms. A few times, they ran into a group of Nashers similar to the first one. Once, there was another one of the big guys, whom the men called an Enforcer, and who was easily disposed of by Duncan. Another time the group was joined by a spell caster. The men called him a Hexer. The Hexer was no match for Ashlyn. Ashlyn was faster and smarter. The Hexer ended up in the air, choking, with an ice storm swirling around him and arcane orbs flying at him in all directions. All in all, none of the altercations took as long as the first one had.

Eventually, they entered a room with only one person standing in the center of the room as if he didn't know what to do. There was no intimidating vibe coming from him, so Ashlyn guessed that he must be Quartermaster Otus. Ashlyn approached him first. "Are you the Quartermaster?" she asked.

"Yes. I am Quartermaster Otus. The Nashers! They broke into the Vaults!"

"Yes we know that." Duncan said flatly, earning a glare from Ashlyn. "Where are they?"

The Quartermaster didn't seem to be phased by Duncan's straight-forwardness. "They were after the crown! I sealed them behind a secret door! They awakened the undead that protect this place and now they're all in there fighting! You have to stop them before they get the crown!"

Duncan caught Ashlyn's eye. His eyes were full of concern for her. He must have been remembering their last encounter with the undead.

"We'll stop them. Don't worry." Ashlyn said to the Quartermaster, who nodded gratefully. He pulled a hidden lever, causing a bookcase to swing forward. The two entered the secret passage. There were more small groups of Nashers, but they seemed to be more worried about the undead than about Ashlyn and Duncan, which made it quite easy to handle. Ashlyn would first immobilize one of the Nashers by either ice shard or lifting them into the air, then she conjure an ice storm over the group which would rage over their heads, sending ice swirling in every direction. As they were bombarded by the ice in the storm, Duncan would dash between them and cut them and the undead down.

It didn't take them long to enter the crown room. It was at the very end of the corridor. As soon as they entered, there was a woman there with a younger man behind her. The woman picked up the crown.

"Hey!" Ashlyn yelled and took a step forward, but was stopped by Duncan's arm. The woman turned to face them as Duncan ordered, "Put the crown down and surrender. Or you will die like the rest of your men." He gestured to the corridor behind him where the woman would find her gang members dead.

The female Nasher started to say something, but a sudden roaring noise rang through the chamber. All those present turned to find the source of the noise. A large armored skeleton stepped out of a side room. It was the Guardian of the Nine. Ashlyn had read about it a long time ago. It must have been awoken when the woman picked up the crown. The Guardian roared again.

The woman laughed. "You're too late!" she yelled, and then she turned toward the staircase and fled with her sidekick in tow. Duncan started to follow her, but was flung backward by the Guardian. Great. So the thing thought Duncan and Ashlyn were responsible for the crown being gone. Ashlyn's eyes found Duncan picking himself off of the ground.

"I guess we have to fight it!" Ashlyn said angrily, to which Duncan replied, "You think so?"

At that moment, the Guardian charged at her, causing her retort to be lost in her yelp. She teleported to the left and began launching arcane orbs at it while it charged passed her. While it was recovering, Duncan unleashed a flurry of stabs and slashes at a speed that made Duncan look like barely a shadow. Ashlyn slammed her fists into the ground. Numerous jagged glaciers erupted from the ground, all pointing at the creature. One of them hit the Guardian, sending it airborne as Duncan jumped off of it into the air. It crashed into another one of the glaciers and was impaled. It looked as though the creature was finished, but it was still struggling to get free of the ice. Duncan had barely landed on his feet before he was dashing back at it. He stabbed the Guardian with both daggers at the base of its neck. He then used his daggers to pry its head off. Its head popped off with such force that it flew into the air and landed at Ashlyn's feet.

Ashlyn exhaled heavily. The thieves had gotten away with the crown. Knox wouldn't like that. Duncan was headed back in her direction. "Well that's that." He sounded as disappointed as Ashlyn felt. "Let's go give Knox the bad news, Lady Pink." Trying to make the mood lighthearted, he held both arms out toward the staircase as if to say 'after you.' Ashlyn smiled and led the way up the stairs.

She squinted as she stepped into the sunlight. She hadn't realized how dark it was down in the vaults. She turned to Duncan, who was squinting too. "You know. I don't appreciate your cheek." Ashlyn said, referring to his quip just before they fought the Guardian. She didn't feel as irritated about it as she usually was, however. He seemed to sense this because he chuckled.

"You'll get over it." He said, and started in the direction of Sergeant Knox. She paused, glaring at his back. Well that was rude. As she jogged to catch up with him, she wondered why she felt more amused than annoyed.


	4. Chapter 3 - Making Nice

When Ashlyn and Duncan approached Sergeant Knox, there was a man there talking to him. The man had his hood up, so neither of them could get a good look at him. The pair told Knox what had happened in the Vaults. He wasn't as angry as Ashlyn and Duncan had expected. Apparently, he had expected something to be stolen, and hadn't expected them to even get there in time to see who the thief was. Ashlyn was a bit insulted by this, but didn't voice it. By the look on Duncan's face, Ashlyn could tell that he was too. Knox was disappointed that they hadn't been able to stop them, but confident that they would get the crown back. At least he had some faith in the two.

Sergeant Knox said that he knew where the Nashers might have taken the crown. Instead of sending the pair on another mission like they had expected, he turned to the man that he had been talking to before. The man had a quiver strapped to his back and his bow was balanced upright on one end with his hand resting on the other. Duncan was eyeing the archer with a wary look. The only thing that Ashlyn could see behind the hood was dark skin and eyes that somehow seemed to be glowing. Knox told the archer to search the basement of the hideout, saying that he would be going alone. The archer nodded once, turned, and walked away. Ashlyn would have worried that Knox was mad, but before they left, he asked that they report back to him tomorrow.

After that, the duo went to walk around Protector's Enclave despite how exhausted they both were. As they strolled through the streets taking in the beauty of it, Ashlyn began wondering how long they had until dark. The sun was already pretty low in the sky. It was then that it occurred to her that neither of them had enough money to rent a room of their own. They may have to split the cost of a room and share it. She glanced up at Duncan's face. He seemed to be in deep thought as well. She wondered if he was figuring this out too. His eyes flicked to meet hers, and then after a brief second, he looked away. Was that a yes? Had he just figured it out? Was he upset about it? She wasn't sure, but they definitely needed to discuss it. "Um… Wol—"

"Hey look!" He yelled as he rushed over to a stall that they had been about to pass. There were all kinds of weapons on display. He reached out a hand to touch one of the daggers, but the woman behind the counter smacked his hand away.

"Don't touch! Only look!" she said. Duncan frowned at the woman with a raised eyebrow. "How much money you have?" she asked him in a loud voice, "That dagger is 250,000."

"Gold?!" Duncan exclaimed.

"No, copper. Yes gold, you idiot!"

Ashlyn could see Duncan's retort forming.

"You—"

"Weeeell! Thank you, ma'am!" Ashlyn said, grabbing Duncan's arm. "Wish we could stay, really, but… uhh… we can't." Even though Duncan didn't seem to be resisting, she still struggled as she hauled him away. She continued to pull on his arm until they were well out of the woman's earshot, Duncan rolling his eyes all the while. Once they were far enough away, she stopped. Ashlyn turned to him and crossed her arms.

"Whaaaat?" Duncan asked, dragging the word out with evident irritation.

She continued to glare at him for a few more seconds, but then decided that it wasn't worth it. He hadn't done anything wrong, after all. He had only been excited about the cool weapons. The woman had been the rude one. If she wanted to make money, she should really learn to be nicer. She sighed. "Nothing, Wolf. Anyway. I was trying to say that we—"

"Are you hungry?"

"What?"

"I know I am. Let's go get some food."

"Wolf I'm trying to—"

"I wonder what they have around here." He started to walk in the general direction of the Enclave's market. "Come on, let's—"

"Duncan! I'm TRYING to talk to you! Will you listen, please?!"

He stopped and turned back to her with a frown. The sound of his own name seemed to have gotten his attention more than anything. He opened his mouth to say something. Whatever it was, Ashlyn expected that it would start a whole different argument. With a raised eyebrow, she crossed her arms. Duncan exhaled as she shifted her weight to her back foot and peered up at him through her eyelashes. He said, "Fine. Say it." This took her by surprise. Say 'it'? As in he knew what she was going to say? "Go on."

"What?" she asked. Her arms dropped back to her sides as she took a step toward him.

"I know what you've just figured out in that annoying little head of yours. Just say it. I suppose we have to talk about it soon. It IS starting to get dark."

Ashlyn eyed him for a second, and then she said, "Neither of us have much money."

Duncan waited. "… No. And?" He prompted.

"And… We're going to need a place to sleep."

"Yes… And?"

She huffed. Why was he going to make HER say it? He knew what she was getting at. Why couldn't he just be a gentleman and offer? ..Unless he thought he WAS being a gentleman. After all, how would it sound for a man to ask a lady that he barely knew to share a room with him. Damn it.

"AND." Ashlyn began heatedly. Steeling herself, she said in a rush, "We are going to need to split the cost of a room." She then peeked up at his face as she added, "And then share it." He looked amused. He was enjoying how uncomfortable she was. She glared up at him, unsuccessfully willing the heat to move from her cheeks to her eyes.

"I'm serious, Wolf." She said severely. He returned her glare with a mask of calm. He raised an eyebrow at her. It was surprisingly hard to keep the anger on her face when he looked at her like that.

"I know you are," he sighed, "And you're right." He rolled his eyes at Ashlyn's look of surprise. "Yes, Pinky. I said you're right. Because you are. But it isn't anything to stress about. It IS possible to rent a room with two beds."

He had apparently known that Ashlyn was stressing more about sharing a bed with him than anything. She wondered if that offended him. And then she realized that he had called her Pinky. Which sounded unbelievably cute coming from him. She blushed again.

"Oh." She cleared her throat before continuing, "Two beds then. Let's-"

Ashlyn was cut off by a shriek of pure rage coming from the direction of the shop that they had stopped at a few minutes ago. Both of their heads whipped around to see that the rude woman was surrounded by a group of bandits in dark green. She was wielding two swords and defending herself pretty well. The woman was able to cut one down before a man came up behind her and wrapped his arms tightly around her, lifting her off the ground.

"Ha! I've got 'er! 'Urry up and grab 'er gold so we can get outta 'ere! Grab a coupla those weapons too. We can use 'em!"

The man's voice was gruff and was the kind that made Ashlyn want to clear her throat. Ashlyn looked at Duncan and said, "We have to help her."

"The hell we do! Serves that bitch right!" But Ashlyn could hear the guilt in his voice. He watched the woman kicking out at the empty air while screaming profanities at the men as they plundered everything that she owned. His eyes shifted to Ashlyn's, then back to the woman and he growled. "Alright fine!"

And with that he sprinted at the group of bandits, unsheathing his daggers. "Hey you douchebags!" One of the men turned around to catch a dagger to the side of the face. Ashlyn sent an ice shard flying at a man who dove toward Duncan. The man froze in mid-air. Duncan jerked the dagger out of the side of the man's face and brought it down on the frozen man, causing the ice to shatter and the man along with it.

This all happened in the span of a few seconds. The remaining men surrounded the two of them. Ashlyn and Duncan backed into each other. Duncan was panting, but she could practically feel his determination. Ashlyn conjured an ice storm above their heads. Tiny slivers of ice were now flying through the air at the bandits as Duncan practically teleported from one to the other. "Jump!" Ashlyn yelled and brought her hands down to the ground, impaling each of the men on a sharp glacier. Duncan landed lightly on his feet and turned to face the last man. The big one that was holding the woman. Ashlyn turned to face him as well.

The bandit's eyes narrowed and he dropped her and then advanced toward Duncan. That was a mistake. Just as he raised his ax, two swords appeared out of the man's stomach. With a surprised look, the bandit looked down at the swords, back up at the smirking Duncan, and then fell to the ground in an unmoving heap.

Ashlyn stared down at the body of the bandit for a few seconds before her eyes met the woman's. She was currently wiping blood off of her blades and onto the grass. Duncan was watching her with a look on his face that clearly expected thanks.

Ashlyn sighed. "Come on, Wolf. It's getting dark."

Duncan grumbled something unintelligible. The only word that Ashlyn could make out was ungrateful; something told her that she didn't want to know what the rest of the sentence was.

"Bye then." Ashlyn said as sweetly as she could to the woman before walking off with Duncan right behind her.

"Wait."

Ashlyn turned back to the woman. Duncan took a few more steps before hesitantly stopping and turning.

"…Take these…. As my thanks." She rummaged around behind her counter for a few seconds. When she emerged, she had an orb in one hand and a set of daggers in the other.

The pair stared at the woman who returned their astonished gazes with a kind smile. With that smile on her face, she actually looked beautiful. Ashlyn couldn't help but think that someone should save this woman's life more often.

"Without the two of you, I would have nothing left… Possibly not even my life… I will never be able to thank you enough."

Ashlyn smiled at the woman and said in a soft voice, "Thank you, ma'am." She took her orb and equipped it, smiling at the familiar warm feeling. "That is very kind of you."

"Yes thank you, miss." Duncan said, taking his daggers.

"Call me Ann. And if you two ever need anything, please don't hesitate to ask me."

"Will do." Ashlyn said.

"Thank you again."

"No problem, Ann." Duncan waved goodbye.

As the purple evening sky faded to the black of night, the two of them made their way to the nearest pub, sharing more about their past lives. Ashlyn found out that Duncan had grown up as a pirate, much like their captain had. His mother seemed like a wonderful lady. She really hoped to meet her soon. Ashlyn shared her story of growing up as the cliché poor girl who dreamed of adventure and riches, and was charmed into following her dreams by some smooth-talking captain of a pirate ship. That hadn't ended well. Duncan seemed to stiffen at this information, and clearly wanted to know more. They paused at the doors to the club.

"I didn't even say goodbye to my parents before I left. I just… went. And I haven't spoken with them since." Ashlyn said, looking up into Duncan's comforting blue eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ashlyn." Duncan said in a soft voice.

Ashlyn? He just called her by her actual name. That was the first time anyone had ever called her by her real name since… well, Ashlyn couldn't even remember how long. She couldn't take the pitying look that Duncan was giving her.

"Anyway. Let's go get a room. I'm exhausted." She suggested, still avoiding his eyes. She reached for the handle, but his hand was already there.

"After you." He bowed and held the door open and his arm out. "LADY Pink." He added. The rough edge had returned to his voice.

"There you are." She said sarcastically, "I was getting a bit worried." Ashlyn stepped into the pub and said, "Thank you.. Knight Wolf." It was the first time that she had actually called him that since his jab about it… had that been earlier today? It seemed like so long ago. As she passed him, she could hear him chuckle.

They arrived at the counter to find a very round man with disgusting stains all over his shirt and Ashlyn said, "How much would a room be?"

The man looked from Duncan to Ashlyn and back. A huge grin stretched across his face. "Just one room, sweetie?" He asked with a raised eyebrow, his gaze returning to Ashlyn. "Weeeelllll that depends. A room with two beds would be 500 gold. A room with one bed is 300 gold and 25 silver." His tongue flicked out to wet his lips. "But, sweetie, if you don't have the money, I get rooms for free. You are always welcome to stay with me."

Duncan cleared his throat and pulled Ashlyn behind him. "Excuse me. I believe she asked for the price of a room, not for a proposition to be whored. What does she look like to you?"

Ashlyn's heart was racing. She peered around Duncan's shoulder to look at the disgusting man. The man looked angry. "Wolf," she whispered, "Just… just get a room. I'll pay you back. I don't want you to get in trouble for me. Just pay him and let's go."

He turned his head to the side and his eyes found hers. "We only have money for a room with one bed," He murmured.

She paused and her heart started beating even harder. "I… Yeah ok that's fine. Just…" She closed her eyes for half a second, then finished, "Just do it." She'd known that it would come down to this. Why was she even surprised?

Duncan turned back to the man. "Just the one bed." The hard edge in his voice was evident. He slammed the gold and silver onto the table. The man grunted and grabbed a key. As he held it out to Duncan, who reached for it, his eyes returned to Ashlyn. "If you decide that you want a real man with you tonight, beautiful, you just let me know." He finally let go of the key and Ashlyn pulled Duncan away toward the stairs.

Ashlyn's eyes burned as she turned back to the man to meet his eyes for a moment. "Go to hell. I don't need a man for anything, but if I did, you are the last person I would come to. You disgusting pig." The man looked shocked by Ashlyn's words. Had he actually thought that coming onto her like that would work? What kind of women usually came through this pub? She pulled Duncan away from the man before they got kicked out for Duncan slicing a worker into a million pieces, or worse sent to jail.

As Duncan swung the door open, they saw a tiny little room with only a bed. There were no couches for Duncan to sleep on or anything.

"Don't worry, Pink, I don't mind sleeping on the floor." How did he constantly know what she was thinking?

"No you won't, Wolf. You paid for the room. I'll sleep on the floor." She already owed the man too much. He didn't need to be sleeping on the floor after saving her life on multiple occasions and making sure that she had a place to sleep.

"You may annoy the hell out of me, Pink, but what kind of a man would I be to allow a lady to sleep on the floor? You sleep in the bed."

Ashlyn chewed her lip. He was being considerate for once. She should just take his offer and be done with it. But she couldn't make herself do that. She couldn't allow him to sleep on the floor when he had bought the room. Her next words came out without her permission. "Why don't we... share the bed?"

This was clearly not an option that he had considered. Or if he had, he surely hadn't thought that she would consider it. "Wh.. N.. No, Pink. I couldn't... You don't... I don't want you to do that for me." This was the first time that she had seen him struggle for words and it amused her. The more that she thought about it, this seemed like the best option.

"Wolf let's just share the bed. One night sharing a bed won't hurt our hate/hate relationship, I promise." she teased.

He chuckled at that. "Well I guess if you put it that way..." He began crawling into the bed. Clothes and all. The heat was going to be unbearable.

"Uhh.. Wolf? This robe is a bit much. I have clothes under this. Would it be too awkward for you if I took this robe off?"

"No go right ahead. In that case..." He then stood up and began stripping. Ashlyn could not believe this.

"WOAH! Woah. Woah woah woah woah. Woah. What are you doing?!" She shielded her eyes as quickly as possible, but the damage was done. She had already seen his chest and abdomen. And she wasn't going to be able to stop thinking about how muscular and attractive his bare chest was.

"I'm getting comfortable." He was now in his shorts and crawling back into bed. So disgusting. But it was only fair, Ashlyn supposed. She pulled her robe off to reveal a smile white shirt and shorts. She slowly climbed into the other side of the bed. This wasn't so bad. There was plenty of room in the bed.

"Good night, Wolf." she said into the awkward silence.

"G'night, Pinky." he said softly. She felt the heat immediately rush to her cheeks at his new variation of her name. It was a good thing it was dark. Ashlyn was trying to go to sleep, but she couldn't seem to relax.

After about a minute, Duncan broke the silence again. "Pink?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you tell me about that captain that made you a pirate? Was it Colton?"

"No. No it wasn't Colton." She sighed, wondering where to begin.

"The beginning is always a good start."

"Would you stop doing that?" Ashlyn tried not to sound annoyed.

"Stop doing what?" He sounded surprised.

"...Nothing. Anyway." She began, "In Waterdeep, I worked as a waitress in my dad's pub. Many different people came through and I loved hearing their stories. Although my dad didn't like it, the pirates were my favorites to talk to. I wished that my life was full of adventure, and my parents didn't know this, but I wanted to be a pirate. One day, a pirate captain came through with his crew and they stayed for about a week. Each day they told me stories and we got to know each other. By the end of the week, it was time for them to go and I didn't want them to. I wasn't sure if I was in love with their stories or the captain, but he seemed to show an interest in me. So the morning that they were leaving, he asked me if I wanted to come with them. I told him no, but later realized that I actually really did want to. I grabbed a bag and threw some essentials in it and left without leaving a note or anything. I sailed with them until they got to the next port. All I was for them was sex to go and I wouldn't give it up to them. They were pissed off and I have a scar on my side from how hard one of the crewmen dug into me trying to pull me to his bunk. I left at the next port and tried to join another crew. No captain wanted to hire a girl. It took me two years after that to find Colton. He didn't care about whether I was a girl or not as long as I pulled my own weight. And here we are." she finished lamely. It was only then that she could feel Duncan shaking. "Are you ok?"

"I can't believe that. I am so sorry that that happened to you, Pink. I will never let anyone treat you like that. Ever."

"I know you won't." There was a silence in which Duncan was trying to calm himself and Ashlyn realized just how true her words had been.

"So. Tell me about your background."

"There isn't much to tell. My family was a family of pirates. My dad was a captain and my mom was his first mate, though she really told him what to do, so she was kind of his co-captain. They raised me on the ship, my dad teaching me to fight and steer a ship, and my mom giving me school lessons. When I turned 14 I became an official part of the crew and I had to work my way up. I was given no free passes just because I was the captain's son. No I had to work just as hard, if not harder, to move up in the ranks. Pirating is in my blood, however. I had mastered my dad's fighting lessons and so he thought that there was nothing else to teach me. My dad and I eventually started to go at it because I knew the ship just as well as him and I kind of wanted to captain it, though I would never lead a mutiny against my own father. So I left to find a new crew. That's when I came across Colton, who was sort of friends with my dad. He let me into his crew and that was only about a month before you joined."

After a pause, Ashlyn said, "Wow. Your history is a whole lot more interesting than mine."

"Yeah a bit." Duncan said. Ashlyn rolled her eyes at that. "Oh come on, Pink." He added, "You've got to have some stories."

They spent the rest of their waking hours talking about their lives and swapping funny stories. Ashlyn didn't remember falling asleep, but when she woke up the next morning, she would remember briefly waking up during the night to her head against Wolf's chest and his fingers gently stroking her hair while he hummed a tune that she wasn't familiar with.


End file.
